


He Bearing Ill Tidings

by FireEye



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: Gen, PSX Flavor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21970720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: Zalbag returns home with a heavy heart.
Relationships: Alma Beoulve & Teta Hyral
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	He Bearing Ill Tidings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CorpseBrigadier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorpseBrigadier/gifts).



Snow had fallen as far as Igros, obscuring the world in a thin blanket of white. Chocobo talons and the passage of men had already torn up the road leading into the capital, proving it at best to be only the mere illusion of purity.

The silence it brought stilled his troubled spirit, all the same.

It was not to last, of course.

Alma was waiting for them in the courtyard, holding her own vigil. And, for all that Zalbag wished for gentler accommodations in which to meet with her, he didn’t know how he could have hoped differently.

Hell, while he was wishing, perhaps he ought to have wished for more. For the matters that weighed heavily on his shoulders now to have been eased, for night and day and time itself to be inversed. For Heaven and Hell to suit itself only ever to his whims, against all nature.

Seeing Zalbag at the head of his retinue, his sister shot to her feet and straightened her dress. Her eyes moved between each of the knights that rode with him, and her expression grew more dire.

She moved to help him down, jostling the squires that had come to take the great bird to the stables.

Propriety be damned.

Zalbag strode towards the inner wall. The men that had followed him to Zeakden – those that remained – found their own tasks to keep occupied. The knights assigned to guard Alma exchanged a glance, before fading into the background to report themselves elsewhere.

Alma, giving them one last confused glance, followed her brother.

“Zalbag?”

Only years of discipline kept him from leaning back into the wall behind him.

“Wiegraf... the leader of the Death Corps, escaped,” he started to explain, haltingly. “Ramza... and Delita...”

He should never have encouraged them.

Alma blinked, struggling to comprehend. A tiny sound escaped her throat, as she searched his eyes for an answer in desperation, an answer that simply wasn’t there... for it wasn’t the truth. She followed his gaze to his hands, where between his fingers was clenched a bloodied, singed purple ribbon. She took it as he offered it.

“Teta?”

“She....” A less stalwart knight might have tried to spare her from the truth. And perhaps he ought to have. “I had to give the order. There was no other way.”

“...you...” She shook her head. “How...?”

“Thieves cannot be bargained with, Alma. No matter what the cost.”

Alma scoffed. Her voice wavered, but there was a strength to it. A strength he could admire, even if everything he knew suggested it was misplaced.

And a _venom_ , too.

“If it were me, could you have _given the order_?”

Zalbag hesitated.

It was the truth, and nothing more.

“I think you know the answer,” he told her, gently as he could.

Alma gasped in anger. In pain. With tears of grief welling in her eyes as she turned and fled.

Of those that remained, his men parted to give her space. Among themselves, they whispered and stared.

But what else could he have done?

**Author's Note:**

> ...I missed the Yuletide Madness deadline by ten minutes. :P
> 
> But anyway. I... maybe I've reading it all wrong, but I always got the impression that Delita and Teta were more or less completely adopted, rank aside, which made the entire situation that much more D: ALSO, somewhere I'd got the impression Ramza was presumed dead, too.
> 
> idek. Please enjoy this small bit of Zalbag angst. :)


End file.
